Mehdi Karroubi, an Iranian opposition leader, said Tuesday that a demonstration planned in Tehran next week, nominally in solidarity with the protest movements in Egypt and Tunisia, was a test both for the Iranian government and its opponents.
Since Tehran is painting events in Cairo and elsewhere as the long-awaited regional blossoming of its own Islamic Revolution, to deny a permit for such a march would show that its position in support of the Arab movements is fake, Mr. Karroubi said in a rare interview from Tehran, conducted via an Internet video link.
For the Iranian opposition, events in Cairo mirror the post-election protest movement in Iran in 2009, not the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and could give new life to the Green movement for political reform, which Mr. Karroubi said had largely been battered into submission by government oppression.
